


Psychosphere

by GeneralHuxNeedsRest



Category: True Detective
Genre: Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Suicidal Thoughts, aesthetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 15:19:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,243
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17769260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GeneralHuxNeedsRest/pseuds/GeneralHuxNeedsRest
Summary: Rust doesn’t sleep.He only dreams.There are bags under his eyes and the doctor with the cold blue pen prescribes him more sleeping pills that don’t do shit.





	Psychosphere

i.  
There is a wet patch in the far right corner of the ceiling. It has gotten bigger during the last few days. He was there. He watched it expand and swallow the dry plaster around, like a malignant tumor eating away at healthy flesh. Occasionally, a small drop of water will fall, making a quiet, barely audible splash as it hits the cushion lining on the ground.  
There is nothing more to stare at. The white walls are completely bare. He spends his days curled up in a corner, with his back pressed against the soft white wall, his bare feet tucked underneath him. He doesn’t move, because there is nothing to do.  
There is rarely anything to do in a white padded cell, especially if your arms are bound tightly in a straitjacket and you are drugged out of your mind. But then again, he doesn’t think that he would do anything even if he had the possibility. He would probably spend the days curled up somewhere anyway, hidden out of sight, flinching at every sound.  
He doesn’t remember much from the past few days. He doesn’t remember much from the past four years, for that matter. He is not sure if he wants to remember anything, because there are scars on his body for which he has no explanation and sometimes, he sees flashing light and he tastes colors all the time.  
He is sure that it is not entirely normal for people to taste colors.  
His mind supplies a word for it, a word he must have read somewhere, before, and it got stuck in his memory.  
Synesthesia.  
The white padded cell tastes like damp cigarette buds and putrid water. 

ii.  
There is a doctor who tells him that he has shot four members of the cartel before falling to the ground with three bullets buried deep in his side. He tells him that he is there to get better and Rust doesn’t believe him because he’s been there for two weeks now and he feels only worse.  
He can’t focus, and the doctor’s cold blue pen leaves a metallic taste in his mouth.  
He wants to sleep. 

iii.  
They let him out of the padded room and don’t keep him drugged all the time anymore, but he doesn’t care. Nothing matters because everybody’s a nobody, time is a fucking flat circle and neon lights hurt his eyes.  
When he remembers Sophia, he screams, and yells and they dig a needle into his arm and he is out again.  


iv  
Rust doesn’t sleep.  
He only dreams.  
There are bags under his eyes and the doctor with the cold blue pen prescribes him more sleeping pills that don’t do shit. 

v  
They offer him full pension, probably to finally get rid of him. They can’t send him to prison; they let him stay undercover for four years and they would have hard time explaining this.  
He refuses.  
He needs a job to keep going, to keep himself from going nuts.  
They transfer him to homicides. 

vi  
He gets a two-story apartment which feels too big for him alone, but it’s all that was available. It’s completely bare and he buys only absolute necessities. A chair. A mattress. Coffee machine. Three mugs. A small, circular mirror he glued to the wall on eye level so that he can watch his pupils dilate. A lawn chair. He keeps what little he has in cardboard boxes and piles up his books against the walls.  
The walls are white and bare, but there are no wet patches on the ceiling and the only thing he tastes there is plaster and paint. 

vii  
Rust is not interested in friendships or relationships of any kind. He is only there to do his job; his personal life doesn’t exist anymore (it hasn’t existed in the last five years). He doesn’t care about the shitheads back at the station. Majority of them has never fired their gun.  
Rust has fired his gun far too many times in his short life and it has put an invisible barrier between him and them.  
No one can reach him in his own personal hell. 

viii  
Maggie is kind and she wants to know him better, despite his poor charisma and obvious drunkenness. She seems genuinely sorry about what has happened to his daughter and his marriage and Rust is sorry for getting drunk.  
The dining room feels warm and safe and welcoming and Rust is almost able to look at Marty’s daughters without thinking about Sophie.  
Until then, every little girl was Sophie. 

ix  
Rust thinks that it’s all Marty’s fault for not keeping it in his pants, but he doesn’t say anything. It’s not his problem. It’s not part of the case.  
Marty sleeps on an air mattress in the room above and Rust spends the whole night drinking and chain-smoking, staring at a fireproof red locker he laid in front of him.  
He doesn’t sleep.  
He doesn’t dream.  
And yet, he knows that there’s a monster locked inside. 

x  
He hates how easy it feels to slip back into Crash’s skin. He thinks briefly about all the things he’ll probably have to do to get what they want and feels his heart hammer in his chest.  
Rust puts two fingers to Crash’s carotid artery, expecting to feel wild, fast pounding, but there’s nothing.  
Crash is calm.  
He is waiting. 

xi  
Crash doesn’t want to step back. When Rust wants to take control again, he fights and Rust can’t blame him. Who would want to be put back into a fireproof locker?  
He almost gives up, but then remembers that he can’s let monsters roam free. 

xii  
Marty fucks up and Crash takes control again, this time to save them.  
It’s Crash who shoots the other man and it’s Crash who covers the whole place in bullets and thinks of a perfect cover story in less than a minute.  
But it’s Rust who sees the children locked up in that room and it’s Rust who carries the dead kid. Crash didn’t have the balls to do it and Rust didn’t believe that Marty would do it properly.  
If someone should carry a dead kid, it was Rustin Cohle.  
He had practice, after all. 

xiii  
Everything goes to shit for a long, long time. 

xiv  
They drag him out of the darkness and he thinks about the hubris it must take to yank a soul out of nonexistence into this thresher.  
He doesn’t want to wake up just yet. He sleeps a little bit longer. 

xv  
The room tastes like mint and the first sight that greets him when he opens his eyes is Marty watching him and sipping a protein shake they gave him. He is wearing a hospital gown and he is seated in a wheelchair, but at least he can move, unlike Rust.  
Rust flips him off and Marty returns the favor.  
It feels just like the good old days and yet, he feels like he shouldn’t be there. 

xvi  
Marty takes him to his place and Rust is grateful for that, even though his body feels like it’s on fire and every breath hurts like hell. He keeps thinking about the conversation they had back at the hospital’s parking lot and he thinks about death and about his daughter.  
He thinks about how he’s been wrong all those years and how, despite everything, the light is winning.


End file.
